PETA Invade The Runway At London Fashion Week Show

For Immediate Release:
19 February 2003

Contact:
Sean Gifford 020 7357 9229, ext. 226 (office); 0773 457 9092 (mobile)
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229, ext. 244

London – One American and two British anti-cruelty activists were thrown out of the Julien Macdonald show this evening after jumping onto the runway and joining in the invitation-only event at the Roundhouse, part of London Fashion Week. Attendees, including Charlotte Church, were heard to gasp audibly and it was reported that P!nk, also in attendance, stood up to applaud the anti-fur stunt. Kayla Worden from North Carolina, USA, and Charlie McKenzie and Ida Bermingham of the UK managed to walk down the runway with their unfurled banners reading, ‘Fur Kills’, while chanting, ‘No beauty in animal cruelty!’

Also under fire are fashion designers Betty Jackson and Jean-Paul Gaultier, who still feature fur even as fur sales worldwide continue a steady decade-long decline. In 1994, top American designer Calvin Klein took an ethical step, agreeing not to use fur. His collections over the last eight years have been fur-free. Stella McCartney goes a step further, refusing to use leather or any other animal parts in her work.

‘People may be able to argue over a war with Iraq, but how can anyone support violence for fashion’s sake?’ says Sean Gifford, PETA’s director of campaigns. ‘Some old designers not only are heartless and shameless, they are also deaf − to the cries of animals in steel traps and painfully killed on fur farms internationally.’

PETA is stepping up its campaign to expose the suffering behind the fur industry’s renewed push of fur fashions, knowing that educated consumers wouldn’t be caught dead in the stuff. Although it is the 21st century, animals are still mangled in 18th century traps, drowned or beaten to death in the wild and gassed, strangled or anally electrocuted on crowded, filthy fur farms. A recent PETA anti-fur ad, featuring singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor holding a real skinned fox with the tagline, ‘Here’s the rest of your fur coat’, ran in publications around the world.

For more information, please visit FurIsDead.com.

Broadcast-quality video footage of animals on fur farms is available.